THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
The first problem you have is to control the urge to burst into song every time a dialogue cue arrives. It's not easy, but Richard Jones inspired 1930s updating of the play sweeps away the cobwebs. Shaw's great humanist message – that the only difference between a Duchess and Flower Girl is how she is treated – continues to resonate today and this revival reminds us that My Fair Lady was only as good as its source material. The story of the Cockney flower girl taken on as a project by a lofty Professor of Phonetics who seeks to pass her off as a lady in society became an international phenomenon so it's not easy to revisit.
The great Bertie Carvel banishes all thoughts of Rex Harrison, for a start. Harrison always seemed to me to be too much of the debonair roué for Professor Higgins, and being a Hollywood star of that era, he wanted to be liked, so there was far too much twinkle. Carvel dispenses with that. His Henry is not just snobbish, tetchy, and supercilious, he's what we might term "neuro diverse" today. He's the perfect Nerdy Professor in his brown suit and sweater, losing himself in his diphthongs, while completely oblivious to those around him, and it's all made worse because he's waited on hand and foot. How to present such a lack of empathy for today's more delicate audiences is not easy but Carvel pulls it off. His Henry doesn't crave affection, he's far too self-satisfied for that.
The original script called for a 'laboratory in Wimpole Street' not the vast book-lined library we got from Hollywood. Here, Stewart Laing's sets are all gray, Bauhaus minimalism with charts on easels and gadgets everywhere. The triumph of modernity. Director Jones weaves some wonderful comic set pieces. He stages Higgins' pompous phonetics tutorials before a curtain and in a spotlight, as if it's a vaudeville turn, which in many ways it is, all of it enhanced by Carvel's angular, gawky gesticulating. Michael Gould balances the mania as the upright sidekick Colonel Pickering, all kindness personified.
Patsy Ferran, who has progressed quickly from 'up-and-coming' to 'definitely arrived', gives another star-making turn here. The switch to a 1930s setting does wonders for her characterization as it's easier for her to get a handle on Eliza's emancipated spirit. With a father like Alfred (bravura comic turn by John Marquez) she had to grow up quickly and Ferran deftly captures this street-smart, sharp as a pin quality. She also has an emotional intelligence, as we say today, that nobody around her has, apart perhaps from Mrs Higgins. The latter is incarnated by the dry-as-dust Sylvestra Le Touzel and she and Carvel totally convince as mother and son. It's as if it wasn't long since he was pulling on her apron strings.
Ferran's entrance at the Tea Party scene when she's hurled onto that "stage" is one of the most exquisite comic set pieces, like something from a '30s screwball comedy. At times it's as if her head and body are in different time zones with both trying to connect. Taheen Modak supplies cheery support as the amiable, smitten, Freddie Eynsford-Hill and, like us, he's also in stitches.
Where the design falters a bit is in the Ball scene where the cold modernism is a just bit too spartan. The atmosphere however is enhanced greatly throughout by Will Stuart's spiky, Stravinsky-infused, music score.
In the past the ending has been mucked about a bit (Hollywood needing a happy ending), but here Jones is faithful. He slows it all down though, which is interesting, and in making it more deliberate he rightly boosts the case for Eliza. She gets the upper hand.
